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Morocco:Outpost of the Middle
East

by Arline Inge

“Sure,” I said, waving goodbye. I hadn’t
the heart to remind her that the film was shot on a Hollywood sound stage
in the 1940s and that Rick’s Café opened in Casablanca only
three years ago.

Nine short miles across the Straits of
Gibraltar from the Southern Coast of Spain, Morocco, the world’s westernmost
Arab country, looks both ways—to its ancient roots in the Middle East and
north to its European neighbors.

Long an outpost of the Roman Empire, this
territory was overrun in the seventh-century by Arab invaders from the
Middle East. The conquerors promptly established Muslim rule over the indigenous
Berber people and set about building the first of the medieval walled
cites, medinas, that have made Morocco a living museum—living because the
fabled medinas in the ancient cities of Marrakesh, Fez and Meknes have
never stopped teeming with life. Thousands of families live in these timeworn
enclaves, meet and greet in their convoluted streets, worship in the mosques
of their fathers and shop for the daily bread in their bustling souks.

Then there’s the European Morocco, a legacy
of the French who occupied the country from 1912 to 1959. Rather than tamper
with historical treasures, they added their own new neighborhoods of broad
tree-lined boulevards, modern dwellings, hotels and business centers. By
the time they were forced out of Morocco, French had become the second
language of the country (English is spoken, too), and bakers were turning
out the crustiest breads and flakiest croissants outside of Paris.

When I asked why a group of 20-somethings
in designer jeans were gossiping away in perfect French instead of Arabic
at the next table in the Marrakesh McDonalds, I was told it made them seem
more avant-garde. They are part of a new generation that is leaving the
djellaba to grandma in exchange for the freedom of a new international
lifestyle. Jetsetters and celebrities like our own Brad Pitt and Angelina
are frequent vacationers here. In their wake, the city is seeing the opening
of new high fashion boutiques, trendy restaurants with international gourmet
menus, and to the tourist’s delight, nightclub restaurants with belly dancing
(not a part of the culture here).

Why were we wolfing down Mac fries at 5
p.m. in this city of wonderful couscous and tajines? Because we’d swapped
lunch for the dizzying tiled courtyards of one of the city’s best-preserved
treasures, the 14th-century Koranic school, Ali Ben Youssef. Then, we clambered
around the ruins of the 16th-century Badi Palace, snapping photos of the
migrating storks who build their nests on its crumbling towers. (Restaurants
in Morocco don’t serve dinner till eight.)

Marrakesh’s
reputation as a raving beauty is well earned. Picture a city of one million
people whose buildings are all (by law) done in shades of coral to match
the 10th-century pressed mud walls that encircle the old medina for more
than five miles. No building is higher than six stories, and tiled roofs
echo the grayed green of the fronds of the surrounding palm groves. Marrakesh
and other treasured cities like Fez and Meknes are oases of culture and
keepers of history in this land of Lawrence-of-Arabia deserts, snow-capped
mountains, humble villages, and its two largest cities, high rise Casablanca
and Morocco’s modern capital Rabat.

More than half of the country’s citizens
are Berbers, and many of these have blended into mainstream society, but
Berber villagers still thrive in the mountains, clinging to their tribal
languages and music, tending the sheep and turning out tightly woven carpets
that are prized throughout the world.

For the visitor, Marrakesh can also be
an oasis of another kind, offering unsurpassed luxury in its sprawling
resorts, five-star hotels and the latest rage, the riad. The formula for
this upscale urban inn is simple: Join together a small row of centuries-old
dwellings, each built around its central garden, into one small exclusive
hotel of maybe six rooms or more. Update and then lavish your riad with
a steaming hamam (Arab spa), swimming pool and an Arabian Nights décor
with chiffon-veiled beds and at least one gurgling petal-strewn fountain.
Offer gourmet dining and costumed attendants who know the wishes of their
guests before they do.

If only there was time to enjoy it!

Even as I lolled on satin riad pillows
with sweet mint tea and honey cakes at my side, Jama el Fna was calling.
Within minutes I was hanging onto the seat of my battered red taxi as we
dodged a Mercedes, evaded two bikers and skirted a tourist horse and carriage.
Finally we met our match, slowing to a crawl behind a spindly-legged donkey
lifting his nuzzle to wail at the sky. The family of seven in the cart
he was pulling waved at the driver and smiled.

It was rush hour, that time when the city’s
beating heart, the mammoth Jama el Fna city square, fills up with after-work
shoppers and diners. Gateway to the two-square-mile Marrakesh medina, this
monstrous space in the shadow of the city’s iconic Koutoubia minaret, is
mobbed from morning to night. But dusk is when the rows of tented food
stalls fire up their charcoal, and the snake charmer, the acrobats, the
soothsayers and the Berber dancers get their second wind. Crowds of clapping
and cheering onlookers form circles five-man deep around them all across
the square. A Tuareg Blue Man from the Sahara beckons us to his blanket
spread with medi-cinal bones and herbs. A henna tattoo artist squats among
his paints and brushes, to trace a graceful pattern on a young girl’s wrist.
A Barbary ape gnaws at his tether, and a beggar holds out cupped hands
to us. It doesn’t take long to realize that this square is not theater
for tourists; it’s really a slice of life.

The next morning, hungry for more, I joined
the shoppers in the narrow alleys of the jam-packed souk lined with stalls
selling everything from raw sheep’s heads to rubies. Hey, make way for
that donkey delivery truck with the bathtub on its back.

Nothing
could have torn us away from Marrakesh except the lure of the ancient city
of Fez, sprawled in a wide riverbed a leisurely day’s ride north.
Its own picturesque medina, with 20,000 people, no motorized vehicles allowed,
is considered the oldest and best preserved in the world. And it’s a short
drive west to the 11th-century city of Meknes and the ruins of Volubilis,
the fourth-century Roman city that flourished here.

Fez is a city of craftsmen, with separate
streets and districts delegated to each endeavor and product such as musical
instruments, wool, jewelry, pottery, kitchenware, wool carding, carpet
weaving, shoemaking, tent making, metalwork and a long list of others,
tourists welcome. Two of the most extraordinary visits are first, the tannery,
where you can watch the workers dipping the skins in giant stone vats of
chemicals and colors in a scene from the Middle Ages. And second, the Nejjarine
Museum of Wood, housed in a graceful building that is itself a masterpiece
of the carver’s art.

The last chance for souvenir hunting came
for us in Meknes, in the heart of the wine and olive growing country, where
we scooped up last minute bracelets and babouches in Meknes’ mini Jamal
el Fna. The city’s biggest attraction is the dizzying tiled tomb of the
sultan Moulay Ismail, who was a contemporary of Louis XIV of France and
vowed to make Meknes the Versailles of Morocco. Hence the intimidating
arched city gates such as the ponderous Bab Mansour and the delicate palace
Dar Jamai, now a leading museum.

Our grand finale was a step back in time
at the ruins of Volubilis. Its triumphal arch still looks out over the
fields that once fed this city of 20,000, and the miraculously well-preserved
mosaic floors of its long gone villas still tell the myths of the gods.

Peer between the broken columns of the
temple down by the forum and you can see what looks like a giant flock
of white doves on a nearby hillside. These are the white houses and domes
of the sacred town of Molay Idress, the first settlement in Morocco. The
last Roman city and the first Arab city looking across the valley at each
other.

The next morning, on our way to the airport
in Casablanca, we stopped to see the country’s 20th-century pride, the
King Hassan II mosque. It was opened in l993 on the shores of the Atlantic
with room for 25,000 worshippers inside and 100,000 more on its seaside
esplanade. The mosque’s 650-foot minaret is lighted at night, and lasers
point the way to Mecca.

No, we didn’t make it to Rick’s Café,
but we hear there’s another Rick’s in Chicago.

Surviving the Souk

“Madame, Madame, I invite you for tea,”
said the owner of a shop stacked to the ceiling with rolled up carpets.
I knew better, but a chance to sit was a temptation. I sank into a silken
leather hassock while a server poured sweet mint tea in a long thin stream
into a delicate glass. The rug man clapped twice. Three assistants began
unrolling colorful masterpieces. I finished my tea. They kept unrolling.
I got up to go. Still unrolling. In the end, the price of escape was the
brilliant throw rug that now brightens my front hall. Beware medina tea.

I defy a living soul to emerge from the
great souks of Marrakesh, Fez or Meknes empty handed. Guaranteed to empty
your wallet of dirhams, the Moroccan dollar, are these temptations and
more:

They say that the popular Moroccan lamb
stew on a bed of fluffy grains of semolina, called couscous (same name
as the dish) is disappearing from restaurant menus. Cooks generally make
it at home from family recipes, which often include ras el hanout, their
own blend of spices that can have dozens of different pinches of this and
that. But many restaurants still do serve it, as well as other favorites
like the popular meat and vegetable stew tagine, which is named for the
cone-shaped earthenware dish it steams in. Be sure to try the roasted chicken
stuffed with preserved lemons, and for a special treat, b’stilla, a meat
and almond pie, wrapped in papery phyllo dough dusted with cinnamon and
powdered sugar. As for starters, the platters of Moroccan salad should
look familiar. It’s just mezze in a different format.

Note: a handy traveler’s lunch on the run
is a bowl of steaming harira (chickpea stew) or a pair of lamb kebabs with
flat bread and a sweet Moroccan beer.